"As Muslims, we have a responsibility that goes beyond ourselves, our
community, and the ummah to the world as a whole. Concern for humanity,
for suffering and ailment, for famines and disaster, for cruelty and hunger
is only the first step towards this awareness."

The prostitute Fantine, in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, is rather despicable.
She has chopped off and sold her beautiful hair and her two front teeth
in order to provide for the needs of her daughter after being driven away
by gossiping tongues from the factory where she once worked and made an
honest living. She parades up and down the snowy streets outside a tavern,
and becomes an object of amusement for a young man indulging himself in
idleness and drink. He makes fun of her appearance, calling out jokes and
jibes each time she passes by, but she ignores him. Once beautiful, noble,
now abandoned by the father of her child, she has taken to selling her
body in order to survive.

The young man decides he doesn't like being ignored, so he grabs up
a handful of snow and puts it down her back. Fantine whirls in a rage:
she has had quite enough of the world and its wickedness and unfairness.
A mighty battle takes place, but it is Fantine who is dragged off to the
police station. She is, after all, a prostitute. And it is the landed young
man, rich, an idler, born into privilege and plenty, who slinks off into
the darkness. No harm will come to him because he's a citizen who has rights
and privileges that are not accorded to all. He is part of the status quo;
Fantine is not.

Hugo says, "The deepest misery, an opportunity for obscenity."

I think often of Fantine when abuse is hurled at me, when I hear myself
called faggot, or pervert, or sodomite, or when I am accused of mental
illness, depravity, or when what I am - a homosexual - is deemed disgusting,
unnatural, sick.

Just recently I read a story in the newspaper about how the Muslim fundamentalist
group Taleban, in Afghanistan, had put two homosexuals to death by collapsing
a wall on top of them. A few weeks later, I read another story about the
Taleban carrying similar executions of up to half dozen more homosexuals.

The report made mention of the fact that after the wall is collapsed
- a traditional Islamic punishment for homosexuality - onlookers wait for
a period of 30 minutes and, if the homosexuals are still alive, they are
then given medical treatment and sent on their way. No doubt once recovered
they are driven from their homes and families and communities in shame
and disgrace.

Amnesty International filed a report in early May of 1998 stating that
at least five men convicted of sodomy by the Taleban's Shari'a courts had
been "placed next to walls by Taleban officials and then buried under the
rubble as the walls were toppled upon them." In one such incident, three
homosexuals were punished thus while Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar
watched along with thousands of spectators. After the 30 minute waiting
period, the three men were still alive, but two died the next day. What
became of the third is unknown.

Concerning another punishment of two homosexuals, the Taleban's Radio
Voice of Shari'a is reported to have said: "Shari'a-prescribed punishment
has been administered to two sodomites [in] Herat Province. Bakhtar Information
Agency informed us [two men] who had been arrested by security officials
on charges of committing sodomy were publicly punished for their deeds
in the city of Herat today. The cases of the accused were investigated
by the public prosecution office of Herat Province where the accused confessed
to their crimes without duress or torture."

Amnesty International weighed in to say: "Taleban Shari'a courts ...
reportedly lack the minimum requirements for a fair trial. Judges in these
courts, many of whom are virtually untrained in law, reportedly base their
judgements on a mixture of their personal understanding of Islamic law
and the prevalent Pashtun code of honour. Amnesty International has received
reports that such courts often decide a dozen different cases of alleged
criminal activity a day, in sessions which may take only a few minutes.
There are reportedly no provisions for defendants to be assisted by a legal
counsel, the presumption of innocence is dispensed with and verdicts are
final, with no mechanism for appropriate judicial appeal. It has been frequently
reported that testimonies and statements of convicts accepting their sentences
before they are carried out have been extracted under torture. Some convictions
appear to have been based solely on the allegations of the complainants."

AFP filed another report stating that Taleban soldiers in Kabul, the
capital city, had spent "several hours publicly beating two fellow soldiers
they caught having sex." They were then handed over to a military court
and will most likely be executed.

But these are only the latest in a long string of crimes committed against
homosexuals in the name of the religion of Islam, crimes which often go
unreported in the Western press.

According to Wockner News, in September 1994 a gay man from Pakistan
was granted asylum in the US because of his home country's persecution
of homosexuals. The report noted that Pakistani civil law punishes those
who have gay sex with two years in prison, and that Islamic law calls for
100 lashes or death by stoning. The report says the gay man "was expelled
from the Pakistani Cricket Association for being gay, and shortly thereafter,
he received a letter from the local Lahore Cricket Association dismissing
him from the team for being a 'faggot.' That letter was presented as evidence
in the U.S. immigration hearing."

In August of 1995, twenty members of OutRage! staged a sit-down demonstration
in London's Trafalgar Square in protest of the Islamic group Hizb ut Tahrir,
which it says "advocates the murder of Jews and homosexuals." Police broke
up the protest. OutRage! spokesman John Jackson was quoted as saying: "Our
protest was lesbian and gay self-defense against Islamic fundamentalists
who endorse the killing by Iran of an estimated 4,000 homosexuals since
1980, and who threaten and intimidate gay students on college campuses
in Britain."

Another British group, War on Want, in March of the following year,
launched a campaign called "War on Prejudice," accusing Libya of jailing
those caught having homosexual sex for three to five years. That same month,
Sweden denied asylum to a gay man from Iran, claiming they didn't believe
his story that police had visited his parents and promised to kill him
if he ever returned to Iran. Sweden's Federation for Gay and Lesbian Rights
was reported to have denounced the deportation while authorities in Denmark
granted asylum to a 26 year old man from Armenia because of that country's
treatment of homosexuals.

In October of 1996, separatists in Chechnya said they would base their
legal code on Islamic law, and that gay sex would be banned with punishments
of either five years in prison or death. Two months later, in December,
Kuwaiti police arrested seven Filipino hairdressers and deported them.
The Philippine Embassy quoted a police official as saying, "The presence
of gays and their actions cannot be tolerated."

In a first for France, in February of 1997, asylum was granted to a
gay man from Algeria on the grounds of sexual orientation. The man had
founded Aids and human rights organizations in Algeria and was thus frequently
harassed by police, "chased and beaten by Muslims", according to the report.

The World Organization Against Torture, in June of 1997, targeted Pakistan
over reports that two gay men caught having sex in a public toilet were
whipped. In August, the underground European newspaper Al Djamaa filed
a report stating that Algeria's terrorist "Armed Islamic Group" was killing
homosexuals, as well as those who do not pray, people who drink alcohol
or take drugs, and "immodest or debauched women". One of the group's leaders,
Abou el Moundhir, said the "fighters only kill those who deserve to die."
Apparently more than 700 had been killed during the previous three months.

The Iranian gay and lesbian human rights group Homan says that since
1980, more than 4,000 Homosexual men and women have been executed by the
Iranian government, and provided the following translation of Iranian law
concerning homosexuality: "The Islamic Penal Law Against Homosexuals in
Iran, approved by the Islamic Consultancy Parliament 08.05.1370 (30.07.1991)
and finally ratified by the High Expediency Council on 07.09.1370 (28.11.1991)
calls for the following: Article 110: Punishment for sodomy is killing;
the Sharia judge decides on how to carry out the killing. Article 129:
Punishment for lesbianism is one hundred (100) lashes for each party. Article
131: If the act of lesbianism is repeated three times and punishment is
enforced each time, the death sentence will be issued the fourth time."

They add: "As long as the horrifying Islamic government rules Iran,
the most practical gay liberation strategy for Homan is to raise awareness
of the dangerous conditions threatening gays and lesbians in Iran through
an international campaign. Furthermore Homan encourages international,
influential organizations and personalities to speak out, and to press
Iranian rulers to remove severe, anti-gay Islamic laws."

OutRage! adds that Muslim militia groups on the Philippine island of
Mindanao have been terrorizing Homosexuals, threatening them with castration
in an effort to drive them elsewhere. They say Homosexual relationships
are banned in many Islamic countries including Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh,
Bosnia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria
and the UAE. Homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran, Mauritania,
Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. In Malaysia, the Homosexual can be put in
prison for 20 years.

"The fervor of this modern Muslim extremism echoes the zealotry of the
original Dark Ages in mediaeval Europe, when Christian fundamentalists
excommunicated philosophers and scientists as heretics, tortured non-believers,
drowned women as witches, and burned sodomites at the stake."

OutRage! also filed a report in March of 1996 about the "Islamophobia
Conference" which was designed to promote better understanding of Islam
in the UK. Noting that while the conference declaration stated that "Islam
is wrongly and unjustly portrayed as barbaric, irrational, primitive, sexist,
violent and aggressive", when the panel was questioned on Islam's treatment
of homosexuals by an OutRage! activist and former Muslim of Pakistani descent
named Muhammad, "most of the conference turned on Muhammad. He was surrounded
by over a hundred Muslims who screamed abuse and threatened to kill him...
None of the Muslim, Christian or Jewish leaders on the platform intervened
to calm the situation down. One, Imam Abdul Jalil Sajid, a Muslim cleric
and member of the Runnymede Trust, shouted that Muhammad had no need to
ask what Muslims thought of homosexuals: all he had to do what look at
the audience's reaction. The violent scenes led to the abandonment of the
conference."

The Lesbian & Gay Immigration Rights Task force in the US had this
to say in January 1988 press release: "Persecution against sexual minorities
is a tragically routine occurrence throughout the world. Consider
how in Islamic fundamentalist countries, homosexuality may be punished
by the death penalty; in Russia and China, homosexuals are subject
to electroshock therapy to convert them into heterosexuals; and in
several Latin American countries, death squads hunt and exterminate
homosexuals as part of their "social cleansing" efforts. This persecution
goes unpunished when the government inflicts or condones the abuse
or mistreatment. Without legal redress available, many victims flee
to the United States for safety given the relatively better treatment
and rule of law they can find here against such violations."

The report made note of the fact that sexual orientation is now a firm
basis for seeking asylum in the US.

One month later, an Iranian judicial official, on the eve of the February
14th anniversary of the fatwa issued by the Iranian government against
Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses, was quoted in an AP report
as saying the Indian-born writer must be killed. "'The shedding of this
man's blood is obligatory,' said Morteza Moqtadaie, Iran's chief prosecutor.
'Any Muslim who hears an insult to the prophet must kill the person who
commits the insult. It is better that those closest to that person try
to kill him first.'"

He made his remarks during a Friday sermon.

The executive director for PFLAG, Parents, Families & Friends of
Lesbians & Gays, Kirsten Kingdon addressed a US Senate Judiciary Committee
hearing on hate crimes in July of 1998, and said, "As a mother of two sons
- one gay and one straight - I am painfully aware that our gay family members
and friends are more likely to be victims of a hate crime. What parent
wants a child to suffer that way? What parent wants to receive a call in
the middle of the night, as PFLAG moms and dads do, to hear that their
child has been attacked, or even murdered, due to their sexual orientation?
Reported anti-gay violence is escalating - more than any other category
of hate crimes - and parents like myself live every day with the real fear
that it may strike our gay children next. Many of us as mothers,
fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles have seen the damage inflicted
on our own loved ones who are hated simply for being gay. We know that
only some hate crimes are reported because victims are afraid. We know
that all too often victims are not taken seriously by law enforcement officers.
And we know that all too often attacks are not classified as hate crimes
even when the evidence is clear."